Everything has a price, but it isn't always obvious what that price is.

Many of the prices we pay seem to make little sense. We shell out $2.29 for a coffee at Starbucks when a nearly identical brew can be had at the corner deli for less than a dollar. We may be less willing to give blood for $25 than to donate it for free. Americans hire cheap illegal immigrants to fix the roof or mow the lawn, and vote for politicians who promise to spend billions to keep them out of the country. And citizens of the industrialized West pay hundreds of dollars a year in taxes or cash for someone to cart away trash that would be a valuable commodity in poorer parts of the world.

The Price of Everything starts with a simple premise: there is a price behind each choice that we make, whether we're deciding to have a baby, drive a car, or buy a book. We often fail to appreciate just how critical prices are as a motivating force shaping our lives. But their power becomes clear when distorted prices steer our decisions the wrong way.

Eduardo Porter uncovers the true story behind the prices we pay and reveals what those prices are actually telling us. He takes us on a global economic adventure, from comparing the relative price of a vote in corrupt São Tomé and in the ostensibly uncorrupt United States, to assessing the cost of happiness in Bhutan, to deducing the dollar value we assign to human life. His unique approach helps explain: * Why polygamous societies actually place a higher value on women than monogamous ones. * Why someone may find more value in a $14 million license plate than the standard issue, $95 one. * Why some government agencies believe one year of life for a senior citizen is four times more valuable than that of a younger person.

Porter weaves together the constant-and often unconscious-cost and value assessments we all make every day. While exploring the fascinating story behind the price of everything from marriage and death to mattresses and horsemeat, Porter draws unexpected connections that bridge a wide range of disciplines and cultures. The result is a cogent and insightful narrative about how the world really works.

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Editorial Reviews

Business journalist and New York Times editorial writer Porter delivers a popular explication of how supply and demand affect prices. In vignettes about all manner of transactions, from coffee sales to marriage dowries to home values, he disputes notions that prices settle out as rational correlations of supply and demand. All sorts of emotional factors are involved, which enliven Porter’s stories as he explores divergent behaviors of upper-, middle-, and lower-income consumers in what they will pay for something. If a purchase expresses the pursuit of happiness, Porter chases the idea that money yields joy, concluding it can, though temporarily. What about the price of power? Porter adduces the cost of votes in São Tomé v. the United States, as he does the worth of labor, love, and life itself, practically breaking them down into a schedule of prices. As a book in which nothing, not even religion, seems safe from the crass intrusion of pricing, Porter’s work ought to ring up the audience for Steven Levitt’s Freakonomics (2005). --Gilbert Taylor

Review

"At a time of seemingly proliferating risks, though, Porter's searching book is a welcome reminder of the necessity of prudent decision making." -"The New York Times Book Review" "Porter offers us a shiny new lens for understanding the relationships around us that we too often fail to see" -"Harvard Business Review" "Thoughtful, detailed, and fascinating..." -"BookPage" "While an elegant and enjoyable read, "The Price of Everything" is also timely: Porter makes a strong case in the wake of the recession that it's silly for economists and policy makers to assume people act according to rational assessments or even in their own best interest." -"The Associated Press" ..".energetic tour of the daily cost-benefit analysis called life." -Bloomberg News ..".both entertaining and enlightening." -"The Financial Times" "a lively guide through the morass of economic theory... Everything has its price, and here we

In this mediocre book, Porter re-hashes much of what we already know about socio-economics. Summaries of classic pricing problems: statistical lives, psych experiments. Skimming along the surface without diving into analyses. Anecdotes such as the cost of global warming depends on your discount rate. Well, why do we pay what we do? What is a reasonable discount rate? Why? none of these questions are addressed. The first few chapters are worth reading, the rest is disapointing.

When I was young in the 50's and '60s, I found some correspondence between the price of things (outside the luxury trades) and what they cost to make. Over my life this connection seems to have ended, and this book helps explain why and the myriad factors that have to be addressed to restore some reason in our economy.

With the Cartesian logic that Porter has accustomed us to expect from him, here comes "The Price of Everything", a fun and exhaustively documented book that uncovers what is behind the many decisions that we make, be they political, personal or other. Or, in Porter's own words: every choice we make is shaped by the prices of the options laid out before us.I can't imagine a better way to make a story from so many studies, statistics and numbers of all sorts.

I picked up this book thinking it was a business/marketing book, but it wasn't exactly. The title of this book along with its tagline is very misleading.

By the end, you start to wonder exactly what "Mystery" the author was trying to solve. The book doesn't tell you the 'price of everything'. It merely tells you that everything has a price. But I already knew that.

The word "Price" in the book's context is a symbolic price, not the actual monetary unit as in marketing or business terms. So it's more like 'the price we pay for our actions', 'price of doing good', 'price of doing bad', etc..

For the most part, the book is a collection of very opinionated conclusions supported by some statistics.While the book had some interesting parts, it's not as enjoyable to read as say, Malcom Gladwell's books. The author needlessly uses obscure vocabularies and awkward conjunctions to describe something very simple and trivial. He does this throughout the whole book. It felt almost as if the author chose to use such rarely used words just to boast that he knows them. This type of writing style results in very fragmented reading experience and takes lot of enjoyment out of reading.

This book starts out with promise but falls victim to the problem found in many books written by journalists: it's too much on the surface. Without the analytical chops to back up the theories he proposes (contra someone like Tyler Cowen or Dan Ariely), Porter is left quoting experts. That makes it a second-hand analysis, and won't be able to give you any new insights. That's not so much of a criticism as it may sound - if you don't want to slog through the primary source materials then this will give you a great overview of a lot of topics. The thing is, a person who can't draw conclusions of his own in an area, that person can't provide a whole lot of new information or insight other than what their sources tell them. They can't necessarily judge who is right.

That said, the prose is clear and concise, and the text covers a lot of areas. If you are interested in socioeconomics and want a general introductory text, this will provide a great introduction. But don't judge this book by its cover. And although I hate reviewers who do this, considering the title... this wasn't a $16 book, it should have been $10. It doesn't provide enough extra value to warrant the premium price.

Backed by an apparently inexhaustible supply of hard facts and well-interpreted statistics and data laid out in a terse, absorbing style, Eduardo Porter posits in `The Price of Everything' that prices exert a profound --and sometimes determining-- influence on many of our individual and collective actions, and on why and how we do many of the things we do.

I agreed with or was convinced by most of the book's arguments and assertions -- but even those who do not share some or all of Porter's viewpoints should find `The Price of Everything' a very enjoyable reading experience. I find most books on economics arcane, dogmatic, pedantic or plain dull, but this is not the case with Porter's opus prima. The writer has a knack for illustrating his arguments and opinions with highly accessible and interesting examples. In addition, he does so without sacrificing an iota of rigor in the analysis of his data and the development and presentation of his postulates.